Saturday, July 16, 2016

Forecastle 2016 Day 1 Review



Forecastle 2016 photo cred: Marife Bautista
Admittedly Friday had one of the rockiest starts that Forecastle has seen in it's long life span. Just after Jecory "1200" Arthur's set on the WFPK Port stage the call was made to evacuate the park due to weather. We have gotten used to this by now, although pushing thousands of people into traffic during a thunderstorm hardly seems like a better alternative, it does release the fest and the city from responsibility if there is an incident.
It took a good couple hours to get things back on track, but by 7 pm Bully had sufficiently exploded onto the Port Stage with a hurricane of post-grunge energy that seemed to lull the crowd back into fest mode, enjoying super overpriced Fest Food, and scrambling to find the reduced and hidden Porta-Potties.
$6 Nachos


Bully photo cred Marife Bautista

Bully photo cred Marife Bautista

By far the best performance of day 1 was Ghostland Observatory (and also in the running for best performance of the whole fest for me personally). The Austin Texas duo have seemed to revert back to their roots of the layered electronic goth rave sounds found on their earlier releases such as delete.delete.i.eat.meat from 2005 and Paparazzi Lightning from 2006. Front man Aaron Behrens providing howling vocals (in addition to occasionally playing the guitar) seemingly embodying Rob Halford of Judas Priest with the dance moves of Jennifer Beals from Flashdance.  Thomas Ross Turner cloaked in a cape ran back and fourth from various electronic drums and synthesizers amidst an onslaught of smoke and lasers to save Day One from an almost hum-drum fate.

Aaron Behrens' dance dance revolution  photo cred Marife Bautista

Ghostand observatory's Aaron Behrens (left) and cloaked Thomas Ross Turner (right) photo cred Marife Bautista

The onslaught of smoke and lasers that is Ghostland Observatory photo cred Marife Bautista



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